


Aspiration

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Gore, SPNN Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 06:21:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/707520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The motel smelled like ancient popcorn and cigarette butts.  The bed sagged under Sam’s weight, the mattress dipping dangerously inward. They had been on the road for a week straight through and Sam’s eyelids were heavy. </p><p>Written for <a href="http://spnhorror.tumblr.com/post/44359122922/spn-horror-fic-and-art-challenge-for-march">SPN Horror Challenge for March</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Aspiration

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This story contains gory imagery and contains mentions of suicide.

The motel smelled like ancient popcorn and cigarette butts. The bed sagged under Sam’s weight, the mattress dipping dangerously inward. They had been on the road for a week straight through and Sam’s eyelids were heavy. 

“I’ll get dinner.” Dean set down their duffel bags, twin thumps on the thin carpet. “Chinese ok?” 

“Yeah, fine.” Sam threw an arm over his eyes, blotting out the cheap fluorescent light. “Thanks.” 

“Welcome.” Dean aimed a pat at Sam’s knee though it wound up being more of a thump on his thigh. 

Sam slept. He dreamed of a poker table, Lucifer playing the dealer complete with old fashioned visor and vest. Michael sat to his right holding too many cards. Sam’s hand was shit, mismatched and on fire. He tried to fold, but the cards bit into his skin and refused to be set down. 

“Ante up, Sam.” Lucifer smiled, the edges of his lips splintered. 

“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men.” Michael leaned into Sam conspiratorially, whispering over the green felt. “What do they know about putting things back together again?” 

Sam woke, tongue furred and skin prickling with cooling sweat. He turned the dream over and over, but there seemed nothing supernatural about it. Only his scarred brain still trying to make sense of things all these months later. The light was still on, shining mercilessly through his eyelids. Reluctantly, Sam sat up. The room looked just the same. 

He looked at the bedside table, but found it clockless. Awesome. Fumbling in his pocket, he produced his phone. It read a little after seven. He wasn’t sure what time they’d gotten in, only that the sun was just setting. So he’d dozed for an hour, maybe more. There was no evidence that Dean had come back, so probably he was eating wherever he was or slugging back a drink before bringing something back for Sam. 

Cracking open the laptop, Sam spent twenty minutes trying to find some kind of wireless signal with no success. He shut it again, dug through his bag and produced a book he’d lifted from their last library stop. The easy rhythm of note taking brushed away the last of the clinging tendrils of the nightmare. 

His stomach rumbled and he checked his phone again. A little after seven. The pile of notes said differently. Frowning, he called Dean. 

“Where the fuck are you?” Dean snarled after the first ring. “Food’s getting cold.” 

“I’m in the room.” Sam snapped back, hackles immediately raised. “Where the hell are you?” 

“Standing in the goddamn room, so unless you’re under the bed-” 

“Dean. I’m in the room right now. Fell asleep after you left and woke up a few minutes ago.” 

Dean went silent. Foreboding knotted into Sam’s stomach. “Dean?” 

“I got back from getting food an hour ago, Sammy.” 

“No that’s...what time is it?” 

“Nine, I guess.” 

“I’ve got seven here.” On impulse, Sam went to the door and turned the knob. It didn’t move an inch. He twisted it harder, pounded on it and finally let loose a hard kick. The wood didn’t so much as quiver. “Shit. Dean, somethings up. Door won’t open here.” 

“Let me-” There was a shuffle on the other end of the phone, then the sound of hinges creaking. “Opens just fine here. So what, we dealing with something freaky here?” 

“Got to be.” Sam went to the window next. The curtains were a foul shade of green, but they opened easily enough. Outside there was nothing to see, only wall of darkness. The glass resisted his less than subtle persuasions. “Ok. Windows won’t bust open either.” 

“Right. What about the one in the bathroom?” 

The tile in the bathroom was jet black, swallowing all the light from the single exposed bulb. Carefully, Sam balanced himself on the toilet seat and tried the small window. The view remained inky black and the glass remained intact despite repeated smacks from first the heel of his hand and then the butt of his gun. 

“Nothing.” He told Dean. “It’s like it’s not really a window. Probably isn’t.” 

“Ok. What are you thinking? Spirit?” 

“Seems most likely.” Sam got down and almost slipped on the tile. It was wet. “Hold on.” 

He squat down, touched the liquid and brought it to his nose. Warm, but no smell. Water. He followed the leak to the bottom of the bathtub, a hairline crack all the way through the porcelain. 

“Is the bathtub full on your end?” He asked Dean. 

“There’s no bathtub. Shower stall only, kind of a memorable shade of orange though.” 

“It’s the bathroom.” Sam looked into the still water, steam rising gently from it. “Looks totally different here, black tile and I’ve got a full bathtub.” 

“Could be this was built on another site or used to be a nicer place.” Dean guessed. “Can you look it up?” 

“Don’t have an internet connection. Not even sure how the phone is working.” He wrapped his hand tighter around the plastic that encased his brother’s voice. “I think you’ll have to handle the research.” 

“Let’s case the rooms first. Best clues are likely to be right here.” 

It was a good point, but more than that, Sam didn’t want Dean to hang up. If the phone was a fluke, they would be left without even that tenuous connection. They walked the room together from front door to bathroom door, counting paces and factoring in Sam’s larger feet. Same size, except for the bathroom. Then they tore through every inch of the place. 

The beds provided no clues, except to the extreme amount of dust and dirt that could gather on the underside of mattresses which both of them could have lived without knowing. The nightstand drawers didn’t open in Sam’s room though they could in Dean’s and proved empty. The little table with it’s two chairs gave up nothing, even after checking in with the generations of used gum calcifying out of sight. 

Their duffel bags existed in both rooms too. They only checking over their own and finding everything as it should be. Sam brushed a hand over the closed zipper of Dean’s then backed off. They were both entitled to the small bit of privacy their lifestyle provided. 

“Everything’s here.” Dean confirmed. 

“I’m telling you it’s the bathroom.” Sam insisted. 

“I heard you the first three times.” 

The water in the bathtub was still steaming as if no time at all had passed. Sam described it to Dean, who agreed that the bathroom on the original room looked nothing like the one that Sam had been presented with. 

“You’ve gotta do some research.” Sam ran his fingers around the mirror over the sink. Nothing loose or promising there either. His reflection looked utterly ordinary: tired, pale and bewildered. 

“Library isn’t going to be open this time of night.” Dean reminded him. Sam checked his phone. It still read a little after seven. 

“Maybe Dad’s journal?” 

“Can’t remember anything like this.” Sam could hear Dean’s frown. After so many years, Dean must have memorized the damn thing. It had become more of a bible than a guide. Many times, Sam had come across his brother pouring over their father’s words though they weren’t on a case. A holy relic of the departed. “Was there anything else? Any weird shifts? Cold spots?” 

“I know what a ghost feels like.” He snapped with no little heat. 

“I know, Sammy.” Dean said softly, almost placating. “Just think.” 

“I fell asleep.” He repeated, then paused. “Had a dream.” 

“Of what?” 

“Just hell stuff.” He mumbled, wishing he could swallow the words back as soon as they were said. 

“Maybe that triggered it. Lot of negative stuff that’ll draw a ghost pretty quick.” 

“Negative stuff.” Sam repeated dully. He put the bathtub at his back and walked back into the main room. 

Still fluorescent bright, still normal it’s cheap decay. He paced uneasily, listening to Dean flip through pages of Dad’s journal as if there might be some overlooked page that had the perfect solution. 

Paces. Paces. And counts. 

“The room is getting smaller.” He said thickly into the shared silence of his brother’s breathing. 

“What?” Dean asked and Sam could picture him hunched over the journal, scrubbing his face with one hand and the cellphone caught between shoulder and ear. Sam wanted Dean so badly in that moment that it manifested as a chemical burn in his throat. 

“We counted thirty-one foot lengths. I’m only getting thirty now.” He counted again carefully. “Twenty-nine.” 

“You sure you counted right the first time?” 

“I-” Sam stopped. He spun in a slow circle. Nothing looked smaller. Maybe it was just in his head. Confinement already wearing on him. “Maybe. I don’t know. Wait.” 

His notes and the book were still on the table, but so was Ruby’s knife. 

“What?” Dean demanded. “Sam?” 

“Ruby’s knife in your bag?” 

“Yeah, of course.” 

“Cause it’s on my table now.” It looked inviting too, gleaming in the sick white light. “I think whatever it is, it’s escalating.” 

“How much battery do you have left?” Dean demanded. 

Sam checked his phone. Still a little after seven and the charge hadn’t changed a fraction. 

“Don’t think we have to worry about that on my end.” 

“Ok, I’ll keep the line open then. Let’s go break into a library.” 

“Dean!” Sam protested, despite himself. 

“You want me to leave you in there until whenever the fuck they open up in this two bit town?” Dean scoffed. “Cause I could use the sleep.” 

“Sorry. No. Just...” 

“I’ll be careful not to damage any dusty books in the process, princess.” 

Sam closed his eyes, listened to Dean’s footfalls on gravel and the Impala’s door closing. The radio hummed to life, too quiet for Sam to make out what exactly Dean was listening to. The drive was short and soon the sound of shattering glass and a soft swear crackled over the line. 

“I’m in.” Dean’s breath was harsh against the receiver. 

“Get on a computer and check their databases first. Maybe someone digitized the local papers.” 

“Anything to avoid microfilm.” Dean agreed. The chime of Windows booting up rang soothingly predictable over the line. 

Sam paced the room. Twenty-eight. Ruby’s knife didn’t move. The bathtub still steamed. The mirror had fogged over now and Sam couldn’t make out his reflection in it, only a blob of pale skin and a wig of dark hair, ill fitting and off center. 

“Any luck?” He asked tightly, backing out of the bathroom. His socks were damp through his shoes. The leak had gotten worse. 

“Dunno.” A keyboard caved to Dean’s ruthless hunt and peck. “I’ve got a database, but it’s a mess and the paper covers a bunch of counties.” 

“Right.” 

“You ok?” Dean asked, clearly distracted and checking in out of habit. 

“Fine.” Sam slumped into a chair, picking up his discarded pen and doodling in the margins of his notes. “Practically a vacation.” 

“Sam.” 

There were dictionaries of meanings they could put into each other’s names. Words for love and hurt and respect and sorrow. Sam closed his eyes against the spiky familiarity of Dean’s irritation. 

“I dunno, man. It’s weird here that’s all. Like an oversized coffin.” 

“Don’t say things like that.” Dean growled, another sharp smack to the keys. “Here. Looks like the motel used to be an upscale hotel. Must’ve been a lot of coats of paint ago. Couple of homicides....hm.” 

Sam wished he was bent over Dean’s shoulder, reading whatever had been uncovered. His world would be full of the smell of Dean’s aftershave and the heavy heat that always poured off of his brother’s body when he was still for too long. 

“-suicide.” 

“What?” Sam tuned back in. 

“Girl killed herself in fifty-five, place got renovated in the seventies.” Dean repeated. “Slashed her wrists in the bathtub. Guess that explains your eternally hot bath. Apparently she was pregnant and the boyfriend was supposed to take her away that night, do the secret wedding thing. Looks like he never showed.” 

“Looks like.” Reluctantly, Sam opened his eyes. The doodles, intended to be simple spirals had twirled themselves into Devil’s Traps. “Let me guess, she died a little after seven o’clock?” 

“Bingo.” A printer started up. “No big cemeteries around here. I think I can find her grave, burn some bones and pop you out of there in time for breakfast.”

“Breakfast would be good.” Sam paced the room. Twenty-five. The carpet by the bathroom door squelched unpleasantly. The water had crossed the threshold into the bedroom. “Pancakes.” 

“Waffles.” Dean argued for the sake of the argument. 

Sam touched the hilt of Ruby’s knife. He barely thought of her these days. Thought of Jess far more often. Though perhaps they were tied together in his head, the very human lover with the demonic betrayal. They had both bled on him in the end. 

“Waffles are just an excuse for you to use an entire bottle of syrup.” Sam said because that was his next line in the worn script. 

“Nothing wrong with that.” Dean read off his line and so it went all the way to the cemetery. “Gonna leave the phone here. Can’t risk losing it while I dig. Keep the line open though, ok?” 

“Yeah. Good luck.” 

“See you soon.” A thud of the phone landing on leather. Carefully, Sam put the phone on speaker and set it on the table next to the knife. Paced. Twenty-two. 

The room was visibly smaller now, the front door too close to the desk and Dean’s bed. It was getting warm too, a soaking humid heat. Sam peeled off his sweatshirt, tossed it in the direction of his bed. Methodically, he checked over the room again looking for...what? The girl hadn’t lived here. This was just a way station from one place to the next. There weren’t personal effects left just the scarred remains of a thousand casual visitors. 

It would take Dean a while to find the grave and at least two hours to dig it out on his own. Sam checked the windows again, pounded roughly at the door until his knuckles split and bled. Two hours wasn’t such a long time. He had sat, barely moving in the Impala in some parody of a stakeout more times than he could count. Sam was patient. Sam was a hunter. Sam had been to hell and back. A shrinking room was nothing. 

“Keep your head.” He ordered in Dad’s borrowed tones. 

He hadn’t finished with the book when he’d called Dean. Notes He could still take notes. He sunk into the desk chair, stretching out his legs. His shoes hit the base of Dean’s bed where there’d been plenty of space before. They hadn’t measured the width of the room. Sam did it now. Fifteen paces. Twenty by fifteen. 

Notes. He sat back down, picked up his pen. Flipped the page of the book. It was blank. He flipped it again. Blank. Blank. Blank. He flipped backwards, but all of the text he had so diligently read had gone, leaving only the smooth cream of paper behind. Slamming the book shut brought little relief. The cover and title had drifted off too. 

He grabbed at his notes too roughly, tearing the top page of the legal pad. The paper curled in the wet heat and the ink had sunk into the page, an illegible melted scrawl right down to the freshest of the doodles. 

For several shaky moments, he just stared at the mush of letters and spiny sigils. They dripped as he watched, the black lines running down the paper and over his hands, anointing them with filthy water. Dropping the pad, he scrubbed his hands furiously against his jeans. The ink sank into his skin, startlingly cold before disappearing entirely. He could feel it though, a spiky chill running poison through his veins. 

“Not the worst thing that’s been in there.” He scoffed to the room as a whole. “What else you got?” 

Nothing. Sam picked up the phone, held it up to his ear. Night sounds, the rising call of cicadas, muffled by the Impala’s windows and distorted through the phone’s reception greeted him. No Dean. 

Stiffly, he approached the bathroom. The carpeting was thoroughly soaked now, the water starting to wick up the ugly floral coverlet of Sam’s bed. The black tile of the bathroom flower shifted under the water, uncertain terrain. There couldn’t possibly be more than an inch or so of fluid on the floor, yet when Sam tentatively took a step he didn’t meet bottom right away. Startled, he pulled away. A thick fog of steam hung in the air now, obscuring the mirror and the entire far wall where the toilet should be. 

Sam stared into the swampy abyss, then turned back around. Paced. Eighteen by thirteen. Ruby’s knife was sweating with condensation, beads of water sliding off the sharp blade to bead against the table’s laminate surface. The burnt smell of cigarettes had given way to new odor, something a fetid and sweet. 

“Dean?” Sam said into the phone, trying not sound desperate. “Are you close? Where are you, man?” 

How much time had passed? Ten minutes? An hour? Three? The fog rolled into the bedroom, clinging to the ceiling like a localized storm. Sam’s hair went slick with sweat, clinging to the back of his neck. There’d been a summer in Alabama like this, Sam down to his underwear on the sagging front porch of the latest rental. He’d spent the whole summer feeling too large for skin, too itchy to sit still, but too sluggish from heat to do anything about it. A hellish summer with Dad away and Dean turned a stranger from hormones. 

He picked up his notes again, the paper soft. He tried to set a pen to it though he had no idea what he would right. The tip tore through, sank into the pulpy remains and would not come unstuck, no matter how hard he tugged. The gluey paste threatened to take his fingers too until he gave up with a grunt of frustration. 

Unable to stop himself, he paced the room. Sixteen by twelve. The table was crowding Dean’s bed now, barely allowing Sam to get by. The beds were colliding together, both of the comforters soaking up water until the fat pink flowers were shaded red and drooping towards the floor. 

“The key is the bathroom.” Sam reminded himself and he couldn’t put it off any longer. It wasn’t just the bathroom, it was that steaming tub that had cradled a dying girl’s body in her last minutes. Cell in one hand, Sam stepped back into the bathroom. Again he didn’t hit the ground when he expected it, foot sinking down and down until he touched slick tile at knee deep. It was hot, almost unbearably so and slogging through it only added to the sodden workings of his mind. 

“Focus.” He snapped, pushing forward. 

The bathtub took too long to get to as if the feet missing from the main room had reappeared in the bathroom. The closer he got, the thicker the water became until it was jello thick and twice as dark. The fetid smell redoubled, a sandwich left too long on the Impala’s dashboard. He gagged, but Sam had long ago perfected the art of suffering without throwing up. The trick was to grin like a demented jack o'lantern. So he smiled and smiled as he reached into the bathtub’s scalding heat. 

The thick gunk that slid through his fingers wasn’t water, but when he drew it back out there was nothing strange on his hand. It dripped water, the skin pink from the heat. Swallowing hard, he reached in again and fished around for the drain. Maybe if he could pull that, just ease it off a little, maybe the heat would clear just a little. Just enough for Sam to think straight. To stop the dripping sweat into his eyes and the rapid beating of his heart and thud of his pulse in his ears. 

“Sammy?” Dean’s voice rattled over the phone, small in the steam. Sam jammed the phone to his ear hard enough to sting. 

“I’m here.” 

“Torched her Sammy.” Dean was practically laughing. “Got her for you. It’s fine. You’re fine.” 

“I’m not.” Sam swallowed. “I’m still here.” 

“Waffles when I get back!” 

“Dean! It’s not ok, I’m still here! Did you hear me?” 

“Don’t bitch, you can sleep on the road.” 

“Dean.” Sam choked. “Listen to me!” 

“I’ll be there soon, Sammy. I promise.” Dean sing-songed. 

“Dean!” He shouted, but the line had gone dead, not even the road noises that had kept Sam company on his walk to the bathtub. 

The phone that shouldn’t work in a room where the walls were sweating with heat and ink melted into his skin. He rubbed his thumb over the phone and watched as the plastic shifted like skin hanging too loose over bone. Not Dean then. Stupid, Sammy, really fucking stupid. Of course it wasn’t Dean.

If the story the false Dean had told him was even close to the truth, then the ghost was replaying her own story on him. The wait for the lover, perhaps a last phone call with a ‘be there soon’. And then what? Was Sam meant to take Ruby’s knife, lay down in the sour bog and split open his flesh? 

No. Absolutely not. Sam dialed Dean again, the buttons waxy and molten under his fingers. He listened to it ring as he worked his way back to the bathroom door. 

Was there music playing? A lullaby maybe or the rise and fall of a guitar? Sam pushed ahead, it took some doing to flatten his foot against the bedroom floor, enough leverage to pull himself up and out of the bathroom turned pool. The room had shrunk further, the beds crashing into one lumpy entity. The music came from under the sodden comforter. Sam allowed himself no time to think, he reached out and snatched back the blankets. 

Dean’s phone was the last thing Sam noticed though AC/DC wailed on and on. 

Whatever had gotten to Dean had been through. His body lay splayed over the gummy sheets, a bloody smear. The worse were his eyes, ripped away to leave dry emptied sockets gaping at the ceiling. Sam forced himself to look, to decipher. It wasn’t Dean, not any more than it had been Dean on the phone. This was illusion, but an illusion that might offer clues. 

“What are you trying to tell me?” He asked the ever thickening air. “What happened here?” 

He touched one of the body’s ankles, an exposed slice of skin unmarked by whatever had gored him open. It was a triangle of pale flesh, fish cold under Sam’s touch. Someone strong had hacked into the body’s chest, easing under ribs and spilling thick clots of blackened blood onto a v-neck t-shirt that Dean had owned for years. 

An illusion. Blood didn’t look like that. It spilled, it darkened certainly, but this looked like the chocolate pudding Sam had made at eleven, too think and with the milk gone off. Not blood at all. 

Like the water in the bathroom. 

Sam had nearly drowned before, been held under by a furious scylla and tried draw in breath where there was none to be had. The water thickened then, felt impenetrable. Blood above you would look just like this. 

Sam straightened as much as he was able. The walls were close now, a crunching square of promised agony. The table bumped into the small of his back, the knife smacking into his palm. 

He stared down at the heap posing as Dean. Not Dean. Not Dean. Dean was out there, looking for Sam. Dean was breathing easy. Sam couldn’t worry about him right now. Couldn’t afford more than the quick swipe of his sodden arm over his wet eyes. 

The steam had turned putrid, obscuring every angle of the room, making it difficult for Sam stumble back to the doorway of the bathroom. 

Soon Sam wouldn’t be able to breath. She was playing out her agony on him, but she would not be satisfied until he lay in the bathtub opened up for her inspection. Perhaps she’d killed her lover, perhaps he’d killed her. He no longer cared. Whatever would stop her was in that drain, the place she had lured him from with Dean’s ringtone. 

The bathroom was a bog now, scum filled and reeking. He had hold the blade between his teeth, so he could swim across the vast expanse. The muscles in his arms screamed in protest and weedy hands tried to wrap around his ankles. More clots of black blood clung to him, weighed him down, but Sam had a mission now and he hadn’t lived this long to be taken out by a gory ghost. 

She could not keep the ruse of the endless ocean forever. He pushed against the tide and when his hands finally slapped against porcelain, his labored breathing rattled in his heat stuffed ears. The tub was unchanged in size, perhaps the only thing not affected by her. In one great heave, he was over the edge in a barely controlled fall. The blood thickened water splashed over him, filling his mouth with copper and salt. 

He grinned, that manic vomit preventing grin, and dove both hands into the muck. Ruby’s knife quivered between his clenched teeth, trying to shake loose and be put to the ghost’s purpose. Sam bit down harder, ignoring the creeping pain at the edges of his lips. The faucet sputtered to life, hot and foul, but he pressed on. 

When his fingers found the hard edges of the drain, he nearly screamed in triumph. It had been plugged shut, tight around the rubber stopper and a chain leading up to the faucet. He wrenched at it with all his strength, nearly collapsing backwards as it came up all too easy in his hands. 

The choking gurgle of water draining away punctuated the air though the level of the water stayed the same. Not fixed. Not over. He reached down again, into the gaping hole of the drain. his fingers were long, but not slender and the drain was tight. The knife fought harder and harder, tearing into the soft flesh of Sam’s cheeks. The bright spark was an old friend, spurring him onward. 

There. Sam wiggled his finger a little more and- 

“Shit!” The knife jerked free of his lips fell, cutting a sharp line over his arm. “Fuck, you think that’s going to stop me? That’s a papercut.” 

He closed around the object and pulled it loose. The ring hung from his finger, the diamond pathetically small. There was no burning it in the thick wet heat, so Sam took a more basic approach and simply smashed the band against the porcelain. He was dimly aware that the knife had taken on a life of it’s own, slashing at him as he smacked the band against the rim of the tub again and again. 

“Sam!” Dean’s rough voice cut through his angry haze. “Dude, what are you doing?” 

“Dean.” He said weakly, dropping the hammered remains of the ring to the floor. The blessedly, horridly orange floor. He closed his eyes in shaking relief. 

“Sammy! Shit, Sammy what happened?” Dean’s hands were on him, hard and rough and real.

“Poltergeist with hallucinations.” He wanted to weep, maybe he did. 

“Ok, Sammy, ok.” Dean’s lips on his forehead, sweet and soft as though Sam were six again, sick with fever. “You did so good.” 

“Did I?” He coughed. 

“Look at me, Sammy. C’mon, baby boy.” 

Sam looked. 

Lucifer grinned wide and bleeding and carrying a bag of Chinese takeout, “My good boy.”


End file.
